Hello!
I have been busy compiling your favourite workplace newsletter – a combination of things you need to know and things that will make you laugh out loud.
In this issue there’s a workplace trend, news snippets, a case update and sage advice in the “Dear Jen” column.
And of course, I share my recommendations for your viewing pleasure.
I hope this newsletter brings you some wisdom and joy!
Cheers,
Jen
What trend am I seeing across the workplace world?
Stupidity. Hubris. A spectacular lack of self-awareness.
I have seen a lot in my ahem thirty-five years practising law, but people still manage to surprise me. Just when you think no one could possibly send that email, make that comment, ignore that warning sign or double down quite so confidently, along comes someone ready to prove you wrong.
The good news is that most workplace problems are avoidable. The less good news is that this generally requires people to pause, reflect and ask themselves one very important question: “Could I possibly be the problem here?”
Job of the Week: Professional Squatter Hunter
Flash Shelton and his team have built a career out of removing squatters from occupied homes across the United States, stepping in when families have run out of options and the legal system moves too slowly.
The work involves walking directly into tense, volatile confrontations at properties where emotions are already running high. Flash describes the physical risk as very real, which is not a phrase you usually see in a position description.
The role has now attracted an A&E Network docuseries called Squatters, which suggests the labour market has officially expanded into territory that no careers counsellor saw coming.
See: A&E Network Squatters Hub
Victoria’s Two-Day WFH Bill
The Victorian Government introduced legislation to Parliament on 16 June 2026 seeking to enshrine the right to work from home two times a week for regular casual and part-time workers in the Equal Opportunity Act 2010.
The legislation has received strong opposition from industry groups.
Subject to the legislation’s passage through Parliament, the right will take effect on 1 September 2026 for most workplaces, with a delayed commencement on 1 July 2027 for workplaces with fewer than 15 employees.
Take-Out Point: Victorian employers should review their working-from-home arrangements now. If you are refusing or limiting remote work, the reasoning and process will need to hold up to scrutiny under a new statutory right, not just a workplace policy.
See: Equal Opportunity Amendment (Work from Home) Bill 2026
When the Candidate Isn’t Real: A Deepfake Hiring Warning
A cybersecurity researcher created two entirely fictional job candidates using off-the-shelf AI tools costing about $50. Both applied for real jobs. Both received offers. Neither raised a single red flag.
One “candidate” had a LinkedIn profile, CV, passport and Instagram account, and beat 261 other applicants for a fixed-term marketing role. The candidate passed AI screening and a live video interview, and was offered the job.
The researcher’s advice is not to put too much faith in detection software. It is already struggling to keep up. Instead, employers should build a genuine identity check into the process – ideally an in-person meeting, or for remote and overseas hires, verification by a third party that meets the candidate and checks their documents.
Take-Out Point: A video interview is no longer proof that the person on screen is real. Remote hiring processes need at least one proper identity-verification step.
See: She beat 261 applicants for the job. She wasn’t real.
CASE YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
Federal Court Finds Sexualised “Banter” Has Its Limits
In the first fully contested Federal Court judgment on the Fair Work Act sexual harassment provisions introduced in 2023, the Court found that a supervisor sexually harassed a mature-age apprentice carpenter at a fly-in, fly-out construction site on Kangaroo Island.
The Court accepted the apprentice’s evidence despite the supervisor’s denial. It found he asked her for o*** s** and made a crude sexual remark about her relationship with a co-worker. Both acts were sexual harassment under section 527D of the Fair Work Act.
The employer was also found vicariously liable. Compensation and penalties will be determined separately.
The case matters because there were no independent witnesses to the key conduct. The employer argued there had been workplace banter, including some sexualised banter. The Court accepted that some banter occurred, but found the conduct crossed a clear line.
Take-Out Point: No witnesses does not mean no case. Sexualised workplace “banter” is not a defence to a sexual proposition, and employers may be liable for a supervisor’s conduct.
See: Clarke v Beiler Constructions Pty Ltd as trustee for Fox Trading Trust [2026] FCA 734 (12 June 2026)
1 July 2026 – Payday Super commences. Start preparing now! Please don’t leave it until 30 June.
1 July 2026 – Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave Scheme increases again and reaches 26 weeks, paid at the minimum wage.
1 July 2026 – International Joke Day. The perfect day to boost workplace morale with a laugh or a highly structured, compliance-approved joke.
4 July 2026 – International Day of Cooperatives. A day for organisations built on shared effort, shared purpose and, ideally, shared calendar invites that arrive before the meeting starts.
7 July 2026 – World Chocolate Day. Science says chocolate improves cognitive function, which makes the 3:00pm Tim Tam run an act of pure workplace productivity.
12 July 2026 – Simplicity Day. A prompt to strip away life’s unnecessary complexities starting with that 14-step approval process for ordering a box of whiteboard markers.
13 July 2026 – Embrace Your Geekness Day. Time to salute the technical masterminds, Excel spreadsheet poets, and compliance enthusiasts who keep your business functioning.
Have you recently promoted a high-performing employee and want to support them to step up and succeed in their new role?
Are you hiring for a critical role and know the cost of getting it wrong is far greater than the recruitment fee?
Do you have a complex workplace situation and need a calm, experienced professional to coach an employee who may not fully recognise the impact of their behaviour, support a team through tension, or address a sensitive issue before it escalates?
This is where Deborah adds real value.
With more than 30 years of HR leadership and executive coaching experience, Deborah combines strong commercial judgment with a practical, human approach to help leaders make better decisions, build stronger teams and deliver results.
Deborah is someone you can bring in when the stakes are high, and you want more than advice; you want clarity, traction and a better outcome.
Contact Deborah: deborah@jenniferbicknell.com.au | 0419 203 600
Or Jennifer Bicknell: jen@jenniferbicknell.com.au | 0411 275 920
Dear Jen,
Our firm provides regular milk in the kitchen but not oat milk. This would be irritating enough on its own, but it comes after what felt like a three-year campaign to secure vegan sandwiches at our lunch-and-learns.
I now turn up each morning with a carton of oat milk tucked under my arm, while everyone else helps themselves to the communal dairy like it is 1997.
Is this something worth raising formally, or should I accept that my coffee order has become a private enterprise?
Cheers,
The Oatcast
Dear The Oatcast,
You can certainly ask whether oat milk could be added to the shopping list, particularly if there are a few people in the office who would use it.
Keep it as a practical request rather than a formal complaint – nobody needs a kitchenette tribunal over a flat white. If the answer is no, it is probably not a hill worth dying on, but you can continue your BYO arrangement with quiet dignity.
Cheers,
Jen
I Will Find You (Netflix) is a classic Harlan Coben thriller: a wrongly imprisoned father learns that the son he was convicted of murdering may still be alive. Sam Worthington leads the eight-part series, which has conspiracies, family secrets, increasingly unlikely twists and very little time for anyone to make a sensible decision. I inhaled it.
Mindy Kaling’s Not Suitable for Work (Disney+) follows five ambitious twenty-somethings trying to build impressive careers, functional relationships and vaguely stable lives in Manhattan. There is plenty of workplace chaos, dating mishaps and the occasional reminder that your twenties are not always the glamorous montage promised by television. Think Friends for the LinkedIn generation.
Hugh Bonneville swaps Lord Grantham’s estate for FIFA’s Miami HQ as Ian Fletcher, “Director of Integrity” in Twenty Twenty Six (ABC). It’s a mockumentary workplace comedy from the Twenty Twelve/W1A team, so the football’s almost beside the point. David Tennant’s dry narration is the icing on an already very frustrating corporate cake.
Voicemails for Isabelle (Netflix) is a cheesy but charming rom-grief-com about loss, love and a big secret. It’s got San Francisco scenery, 90s rom-com energy and enough heart to make you forgive the premise.
I have not yet started season three of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (Netflix), but simply knowing it is there brings me a surprising amount of comfort.
